Chapter 6

The phone rang twice at Sloane's ear before Reggie spoke.

"Ms. Berenger," he said. "I'd like to read from my notebook now."

Nadia turned. "Do it."

Sloane lowered the phone. "Reggie, put that away."

"November fourth," Reggie read, in the flat voice of a man reading a delivery manifest. "Main floor, 2:10 p.m. A courier delivering two boxes to the watch salon was told he had to use the service entrance on Fifty-Fourth, despite store policy permitting vendor access through the main door during business hours. He carried both boxes four blocks. He was not a shopper."

"Reggie."

"November twelfth," Reggie went on. "Children's department, 4:40 p.m. A mother with a two-year-old was asked to leave the floor because the child was, quote, unsupervised in a luxury environment. She had been holding his hand."

The woman in emerald velvet had stopped talking.

"November twenty-first," Reggie said. "Returns desk, 6:15 p.m. A seventeen-year-old girl was accused of switching a tag on a returned coat. The tag was verified by the returns associate as original. The accusation was not withdrawn."

Sloane laughed, one short note. "That's a list of nothing. That's a list of a manager doing her job."

"That's a list I was asked to keep," Reggie said. "By corporate."

And there it was - the first crack in the room's relief. Ned watched it move: the man in the gray suit straightening, the woman in velvet looking at Sloane differently, the young man with the phone shifting his angle.

"Elise," Nadia said. "The tape. Now."

Elise opened the drawer. Her hands were shaking, and she had to try twice, and then the register tape curled out of the machine like a ribbon and she tore it off and handed it to the president without looking at Sloane at all.

Nadia read it. Her face didn't change, which was answer enough.

"Register four," she said. "8:47 p.m. Scarf. Gloves. Candle. Card ending in four-one-nine-two. Signature on file."

"That's my card," Ned said.

"That's your name on it."

The room made a sound - not a word, just a release, the sound a crowd makes when it has been holding a conclusion it no longer believes.

Sloane's smile had gone. What replaced it was not shame. It was arithmetic.

"Footage is inconclusive," she said. "Receipts can be duplicated. Anyone can print a receipt at a register."

"Ms. Ashford-" Nadia began.

"He's carrying something." Sloane's eyes had dropped to Ned's chest, and Ned understood, with a cold clear click, exactly what she had seen in that half-second when his hand had risen and fallen. "He's been hiding something under his shirt all night. Search him."

"Nobody is searching anyone," Reggie said.

"Then let's see what else is in that bag," Sloane said - and instead of the bag, she reached for Ned.

He bent at the same moment, reaching for the receipt on the counter, and her hand went past his shoulder to his collar, quick and practiced, the way you catch a thief, and her fingers closed on something thin and corded under his shirt.

She froze.

"What is this," she said.